How does sound wave energy get converted into electricity and why is it less efficient than solar energy?
In: Physics
Microphones aren’t designed to capture energy but rather to capture the pattern of energy fluctuation as precisely as possible.
The most common dynamic microphones are basically just speakers in reverse, you make the diaphragm move which moves the coil within the force field of a permanent magnet which creates minute amounts of electricity.
Condenser microphones don’t produce energy at all but rather vary their electrical capacitance which can be used to determine the diaphragms movements and convert them to an electrical signal with the use of some extra circuitry.
Capturing sound energy isn’t inherently more inefficient or complicated than capturing solar energy though, in fact its much easier. We don’t do it though because its kinda pointless, the amount of energy in audible sound is so small that its not worth it.
If we scale things up and scale frequencies down, way down, wind is a sort of sound energy and there are plenty of efficient methods of capturing that.
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